SCENE 08-1 – Vehicle swap
Location: From Lima to the Pan-American Highway
Time: 01.08.27 – 23:27 UTC-5
Setting: Genevieve exits the area in front of the airport
Genevieve slipped into the mess, letting the crowd carry her toward the exits. No one was paying attention: suitcases dragged across the pavement, phones pressed to ears, voices overlapping. The airport was closed, or in the process of closing. It would remain so for hours, perhaps for days.
She had no idea whether her flight to Nazca still existed. Either way, going back was impossible. Too risky to cross paths with the guards again. She was alone. Or at least, she believed she was.
“Don’t ask questions. Get in the taxi.”
The voice came from just a few steps away. A man in civilian clothes stood beside her, looking elsewhere, as if he were simply trying to flag down a ride. He was not staring at her. He did not appear interested in her presence.
“Which taxi? Who are you?” Genevieve whispered.
“Don’t ask questions. Look around.”
She turned slightly. On the curb in front of the exit, an unmarked car was slowing down. The driver leaned out of the window.
“Taxi?” he said, though it sounded more like a code word than a question.
“Yes,” the man beside her replied. Without adding anything, he opened the rear door and got in.
The man posing as a taxi driver gestured for Genevieve to take the front passenger seat.
A few meters away, a group of airport security officers was advancing at a brisk pace. They were not running, but they were clearly searching for something. Or someone.
“Hurry,” the driver said. “They’re coming.”
Genevieve did not know whether to trust them. It could have been a trap. The officers were closing in.
She decided she had no alternatives and got in.
They left the airport area. “Strange,” Genevieve thought. “They didn’t block the road.” In fact, a massive flow of cars and people was desperately trying to leave the area and, after the terrorist attack, the authorities had allowed the crowd to disperse without further checks. It was impossible to stop the human tide spilling into the streets.
Traffic became chaotic, then uneven. Genevieve watched the mirrors more than the road ahead.
After a few intersections, the surroundings changed. The crowd vanished almost abruptly. In its place appeared low warehouses, metal fences, concrete walls. The car turned and entered a poorly lit side street.
“Where are we going?” Genevieve asked.
“Callao,” the driver replied. “Warehouse district.”
Behind them, headlights appeared. Two, then more. They were too aligned to be taxis.
“Are they following us?” Genevieve asked.
The man in the back seat leaned forward slightly. “Yes.”
The car swerved sharply, then again. The streets grew narrower. Stacked containers, parked trucks, half-open gates. The air smelled of metal and fuel. The sound of the sea reached them faintly, muffled. For a moment, they lost sight of the pursuing vehicles.
“Hurry,” said the man who had almost forced her into the taxi. “If they see us enter, we won’t be able to complete the operation.”
Suddenly the car slowed and slipped through a narrow gap between two warehouses. A gate opened just enough. The vehicle entered an inner courtyard, and the gate closed immediately behind them. Moments later, the sound of the pursuing cars passed beyond the entrance. They had not been seen. Perhaps.
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Inside, the engine noise echoed off metal walls. Industrial lights illuminated the warehouse in patches: parked trucks, idle forklifts, stacked wooden crates. The car stopped. The engine shut off.
“Get out,” the man said.
Genevieve stepped out, followed by her two escorts.
They crossed a narrow side corridor lit by flickering neon lights. The man opened a second door. It led to an outer courtyard connected to a road. In the center, already running, stood a dark, imposing vehicle. Where a license plate should have been, the WO symbol was displayed, indicating the presence of agents not subject to local authority.
A driver sat behind the wheel, back straight, hands on the steering wheel.
The man who had accompanied Genevieve opened the trunk. Inside were WO climate-controlled suits and helmets. They put on only the suits. Genevieve knew the procedures well; she had practiced them thousands of times. From a concealed compartment inside the trunk, weapons emerged.
“I think these may be useful. Do you know how to use them?”
Genevieve took one, shouldered it without hesitation, aimed at a solitary coconut palm—how it had survived in the courtyard was anyone’s guess—and fired. A coconut fell, struck cleanly at the base of the stem.
The man smiled. “Better not announce that we’re here, even if we are WO officials. Get in.”
Genevieve climbed into the back seat. The man who had escorted her sat beside her. The former taxi driver took the front passenger seat. The driver, who had remained motionless until then, engaged the gear.
The vehicle moved off smoothly. They exited onto a dark secondary road.
“Where are we going?” Genevieve asked.
“Same destination. Nazca,” the man beside her replied.
“How long does it take?”
“Six, maybe seven hours.”
“By plane I should have arrived in three, including the airport transfer.”
“We know. This is the emergency plan. By car it’s six or seven hours, if everything goes well. But I doubt they won’t try something.”
“Who are you, and who are they?” Genevieve asked.
“World Order. Logistics and security. Ministry of the Interior. We receive orders directly from the Prime Minister. There are political problems inside the WO.”
The vehicle accelerated. The city slipped away: sparse lights, deserted intersections. Traffic was now far behind them. They were already on the Pan-American Highway.
“I don’t understand. Are you helping me?”
“We don’t help anyone. We’re executing orders.”
“What orders?”
“We must deliver you safely to the Nazca base, before the spacecraft’s launch.”
“Spacecraft? Launch? What are you talking about?”
“We don’t know either. As I said, we only follow orders. And the orders are to bring you safely, with all your equipment, to the secret base at Nazca. After that, our mission ends. Oh, one more thing.”
The man handed Genevieve a glasses case.
“What is this?” she asked, opening it. “A glasses case? I see perfectly well.”
“They’re not for correcting vision. They’re a communication system that can interface with your visual system, like the helmets, but much smaller and more refined. They also have another function. Never remove them in the presence of others, and make sure you are not recorded when you do.”
“Why?”
“Although we are aware of your unconventional origin, others should not be.”
“I’m human too, aren’t I?” Genevieve said, visibly shaken.
“We do not doubt that. But there is something about you that can reveal a great deal to someone experienced. And you will soon meet one.”
“What?”
“Your eyes. Beautiful eyes, indeed. But there are very few people in the world with exactly your eye color.”
“They’re gray. Light gray.”
“Not a common gray. It’s a shade found only in a very particular product.”
“A product? Am I a product?”
“Yes, you are. The color of your eyes is typical of the biological entities of the Human Stereogenomic Project.”
“You mean me?”
“Exactly. I mean you as a biological entity. No one must see the color of your eyes. And when we say no one, we mean in particular Eugene HSP328.”
“Another HSP? So we’re more than one—one or two, maybe more, aren’t we?”
“Maybe. I don’t know—and personally, I don’t ask questions about anything that doesn’t concern my executive orders.”
“But how can someone discover from the color of my eyes that I’m not a common human being?”
“Simply by looking at them and realizing they are the same color as his.”
“So at least another one like me, with my eyes? I thought I was unique.”
“He thinks so too. And he must continue to believe it. You must never reveal your true identity. The success of the mission depends on this detail. Put on the glasses.”
Genevieve put them on. The lenses were transparent, photochromic, capable of altering color under sunlight. Her eyes shifted instantly from gray to green.
“How is that possible?”
“Don’t ask us. Ask the Ministry of Science and Information Technologies. Now indicate to the visor that you want to connect to the Nazca base.”
“How do I do that?”
“Exactly as with the helmet. Think it.”
Reality shifted. The windshield became a screen. Data, lights, and text overlaid the road ahead. One panel caught her attention.
“I think I’m connected. They’re transmitting something.”
“Update us. We will put on the glasses as well. What is the scheduled departure time?”
The countdown appeared across multiple displays, throughout the base and inside the spacecraft.
“Launch phase scheduled in six hours, fifty-four minutes, and fifty-three seconds.”
“Six hours and fifty-four minutes remaining.”
One by one, the agents retrieved additional glasses cases and put them on. Then one of them said, “Let’s hope we make it. There is no way to stop the process. The ship will depart, with or without you, exactly at the indicated time. We’ll synchronize our counter with yours.”
A small screen lit up on the dashboard:
06:54:26
06:53:25
Time was relentless.
On another display, the estimated arrival time appeared:
05:55:35
The agent said: ?Let’s push it—fast, but clean. Go. Within the limits.?
